Blair just said “You would be hard pressed to find anyone who in September 2002 doubted that Saddam had WMD”.
It wouldn’t have been that hard. If he had asked members of the Near East and North Africa Department of the FCO, the Middle East experts in the FCO’s Research Analysts, or in the Defence Intelligence Service, he would have found absolutely no shortage of people who doubted it, whatever position No 10 was forcing on their institutions.
One of the many failures of this Inquiry has been a failure to ask individual witnesses before it whether they personally had believed in the existence of any significant Iraqi WMD programme. I know for certain that would have drawn some extremely enlightening answers from among the FCO and probably MOD participants.
Sir Martin Gilbert allowed Blair to conflate Iran, Iraq, Al-Qaida, WMD and terrorism in a completely unjustified way. When Straw tried exactly the same trick, Rod Lyne did not allow him to get away with it.
A further stark contrast with Straw is that both Blair and Straw were asked about the failure of the UK to secure movement in the Middle East peace process by using our role in Iraq to influence the USA. A major, detailed and fascinating part of Straw’s answer was that Israel’s – and specifically Netanyahu’s – political influence in the USA had prevented progress.
By contrast, Blair did not even mention Israel in response to the questions on the failure to achieve progress in the Middle East. He solely blamed the Palestinian Intafada. He has been anxious to widen the discussion beyond Iraq at every opportunity, and frequently referred to destabilising factors in the Middle East, and again and again pointed to a growing threat from Iran and Iranian sponsorship of terrorism, and to Palestinian terrorism (including Saddam Hussein’s past sponsorship of it).
He has made not one single comment about Israel’s behaviour as a contributing factor in Middle East instability. Given Blair’s official position as Middle East envoy, this lack of any bare pretence at impartiality is most revealing.
@Mark
Why should Cook be afraid of Blair? Of course Blair could sack him, but he ultimately resigned anyway, so why the tears and fears? Or do you mean that he wasn’t frightened for himself?
Thanks, everyone.
Vronsky,
I think Blair warned him. Lets consider some facts:
Robin Cook had said:
“The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called Al Qaida. And any informed intelligence officer knows this. But there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an identified entity representing the ‘devil’ only in order to drive the TV watcher to accept a unified international leadership for a war against terrorism. The country behind this propaganda is the US. Cook has previously written:
Al-Qaida, literally “the database”, was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians. Cook is merely confirming what others have said. Former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski told the Senate that the war on terror is “a mythical historical narrative”.
Cook resigned at the start of the conflict with public opinion and the bulk of the Labour Party on his side, in the wake of the largest backbench rebellion on record, and with Blair apparently on the ropes.
Cook also infuriated Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli government by visiting Bar Homa, a Jewish settlement being built on former Arab land in East Jerusalem in violation of the Oslo peace accord.
Blair and Alistair Campbell I believe tried to destroy him over his affair – and that is what it was – an affair.
Lastly this from his first wife:
“Finally, there was a letter of consolation from Tony Blair. I have it still. It says nothing consolatory about anything except being in the eye of the media storm; nothing about hopes for my future. No such empathy from New Labour.”
Thanks Suhayl. Appreciated.
Richard Robinson raises an interesting issue in “how the deal was done”.
The bigger question of course is how did Blair turn the Labour party into the warmongering right wing authoritarian thing it became under his leadership.
Of course he didn’t do it alone. He was ably assisted by much more manipulative and much greater intellects than his own.
They effected a coup d’etat within the Labour party. They made the right noises in the early stages in terms of Labour history and values whilst simultaneously destroying party democracy at grass roots level and replacing it with key figues who were associated with those values in the public imagination but least politically able to articulate and fight for those values within the party.
These became little more than iconic figures whose continued presence bluffed people that nothing was really changing.
It was never any more than the ruse for which media is now famous; Pretend arguments. Pretend people. Whilst all around the structures of any alternative possibility are being broken up.
Nearly Every Muslim knows exactly what Al-Qaida is. Nearly all of us have studied it from a very early age.
You can see Al Qaida for yourself and exactly what it is from the link bellow.
It does exist!
http://www.scribd.com/doc/966231/NooraniQuaidaa
Yes folks, it is a alphabet book, used to teach 2-5 year olds how to read the Arabic script.
Download it and print it from the link I have provided. Or buy it from any Islamic book shot, Madrasa or mosque for 50p.
All of them have it because Al Qaidia is everywhere.
I said 50p, but I have had stories of it selling for upwards of a pound. I didn’t have to pay anything for my son’s, because one of the other boys at the madrasa bought it for him as a gift.
Some say that it can sell for £3.50, but that is just a rumor.
Look this is the whole of Al Qaida on one page!!!!
http://www.equranschool.com/online-noorani-qaida-for-kids/
Now it is in colour, there was a time when it was in Black and white!
Proof that Al Qaida is adapting to new technology.
Maybe the coloured ones are £3.50 and the black and White ones 50p?
I call that racism!
There is a certain quaintness about monochrome. Even more so with sepiatone.
Perhaps one could source signed copies of the primer for a fiver on ebay…
I’ve heard that Margaret Cook, Robin Cook;s fist wife, was a very caring consultant haematologist. I haven’t read her book, but it sounded interesting.
My first wife who also happens to be my present wife and only wife is a very uncaring gynecologist.
Should I get hold of a haematologist for my second?
This is the man I want to be!
http://www.engagements.ca/images/polygamy.gif
Who remembers:
Katherine Gun
Someone else please follow this up, due to my connection problems!
Katharine Teresa Gun (born Katharine Teresa Harwood in 1974) is a former translator for Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), a British intelligence agency. In 2003, she became publicly known for leaking top-secret information to the press concerning illegal activities by the United States of America in their push for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
She states:
“I urge those in a position to do so to disclose information which relates to this planned aggression; legal advice, meetings between the White House and other intelligence agencies, assessments of Iran’s threat level (or better yet, evidence that assessments have been altered), troop deployments and army notifications. Don’t let ‘the intelligence and the facts be fixed around the policy’ this time.”
My contribution to the list of articles to read, “Global terror is one battle, one struggle” ,an interview which Tony Blair recently gave to Haaretz:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1141080.html
–
“It’s really important to understand that Saddam was actually a threat to the region,” he resolutely says in an interview with Haaretz, during his most recent visit to Israel as the Quartet’s special envoy. “And quite apart from anything else you may remember, he used to pay the families of [the Palestinian] suicide bombers.”
When asked whether the wave of global terror, with its roots in countries like Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen, proves it was a mistake to focus on a single dictator, he replies: “Personally I think we will defeat this terrorism when we understand it is one battle, one struggle. This is a global movement with an ideology.”
The global war on terror is America and its British slaves fighting the whole world one nation after another for Israel.
I think the global war is one veil of lies under another.
The population was told that it was about wmds and terror, while the politicians were told it is about oil and the wealth they will gain at the wars end, while the real reason which few like to mention is it is all about Israel.
The war and the money they have spent reveals that oil is cheaper to buy than it is too steal. The Neocons conned the likes of Bush and Blair in to thinking that the war in Iraq will pay for it self with extra left over.
Israel’s main threat was Iraq, its next enemy is Iran. Iran doesn’t have to be invaded. If it is weakened with sanctions, destabalised with terrorism and suffers years of air strikes that is all of benefit to Israel. And if it is invaded and its rulers replaced by compliant puppets. America and Britain will move on to Israel’s next threat.
France new about these endless wars before they happened, remember why risk WW3 for “that shitty little country Israel”?
Clark,
I have connection problems – insertion loss is enormous – I have told ‘them’ to get better equipment. ;-(
But I meant to say before being rudely interrupted yes, brilliant Clark, Katharine Teresa Gun – another angle.
Katharine stated this, extremely relevant and those with a conscience at GCHG please take note:
She stated:
“I urge those in a position to do so to disclose information which relates to this planned aggression; legal advice, meetings between the White House and other intelligence agencies, assessments of Iran’s threat level (or better yet, evidence that assessments have been altered), troop deployments and army notifications. Don’t let ‘the intelligence and the facts be fixed around the policy’ this time.”
“”It’s really important to understand that Saddam was actually a threat to the region,” he resolutely says”
Of course. That’s why A Coalition united to stop him the moment he aggressed against his neighbours in ’81.
Oh. That’s odd. Well then it must be why everybody realised he had to be stopped when he started flinging his poison-gasses at them a handful of years later ?
Oh. But of course, we had a Tory government then, it must be why it was such an unforgettable plank of the NuLabor manifesto in ’97.
All together now, ‘9/11 Changed Everything’.
Well then, that’s what led us to realise what a bad idea it is to go taking up with “they might be bastards but at least they’re our bastards”, and of course we couldn’t conceivably do that any more … that must be why this site doesn’t exist.
Excuse the sarcasm, if you will.
02 Feb 2010
“Secret CIA-Mossad meeting,preparation for new war?”…
http://en.apa.az/news.php?id=115159
Blair knows.
A poignant angle in all this is the role of leftist figures such as Noam Chomsky, who, while admirable in most other aspects, have been criticised for appearing consistently to deflect the focus of criticism/ blame from Israel and its infiltration into, of and instrumentalisation of, key legislative, executive and military aspects of the US state. This process appears to have intensified over the past couple of decades. Israel is generally pictured by these commentators as ‘an American colony’, but this is a distortion and simplification in several respects and elides a (the) crucial nexus. Mearsheimer and Walt were among the most prominent of the dissenters from the prevailing blinkered view and look at the impact on them. That Congresswoman, whatshername, who dissented: instant deselection. It is indeed an extremely dangerous situation, where important – and in terms of the world, critical – dynamics of the hyperpower have been subsumed into the irremediably partisan agenda of another state: the tail is most certainly wagging the dog.
It is as though the CentCom of Ancient Rome had been taken over by… Palestine.
Thanks George,
I’m going to investigate this; I have been prevented from posting.
Creepy.
I think Israel clearly isn’t an American colony, but America may have become an Israeli colony.
And no this isn’t going to be the usual anti-Semitic crap, because the largest vote bank that causes this are the evangelical Zionist christian movements.
These movements are really powerful in America.
Most people shy away from stating the obvious, especially white liberals because they fear accusations of racism and antisemitism. Even Jews fear these labels, with the added label of being labeled a self hating Jew.
In America there are two very powerful groups who put Israel’s needs above America’s, Israel’s interests above America’s. They do this with the excuse that the interests of the two states coincide.
These two groups are Zionist Jews, such as the Neocons, who have a lot of influence but very little numbers.
And the Red Necked evangelical Zionists who have little influence but great numbers.
Even though these two groups prefer to say the interests of America and Israel coincide, they will admit that Israel comes first.
The evangelicals believe Israel has to always come first because of theological reasons. They even state that the interest coincide on theological grounds instead of logical grounds by stating that “Who ever blesses Israel will be blessed, who ever curses Israel will be cursed”.
The Zionist Jewish group are mostly, even over overwhelmingly liberal and atheist. They support Israel for racist and nationalist reasons instead of religious reasons. They share nothing with the Christian group other then putting Israel first.
Other then the Neocons who are a small minority amongst them, they are overwhelmingly democrat while the Christian Zionists are republican.
But just as the Neocans have done, they are willing to put their liberalism aside if it gets in the way of putting Israel first.
Arsalan,
Mark Golding,
Thanks for following up on Katheraine Gun. I think they were going to prosecute her, but dropped the charges or something, probably to avoid publicity from a trial.
Mark Golding,
the only innocuous reason I can think of for the activity on your port 443 is that tony_opmoc’s post at January 30, 2010 5:24 PM included a link to a https site. This would only be relevant if your browser caches plain-text links, which is unlikely.
My broadband is OK now, there was a failure at the exchange.